how do i calculate energy with gas and utility bills?

Question

for a chemistry project, i have to figure out how much energy i used in a year. so, if i want to calculate my usage of utilities and gas consumption and look at the bills, how would i do this if i have to get my answer in joules?

i mean, how do i calculate joules using gas and utility bills?*

oh, and i have to figure out the energy to produce my clothing, so how would i do that? would an online energy calculator do that? thanks a lot!

Answer 1

electric energy is easier. It is reported in Kilowatt hours. Find the conversion between joules and kilowatt hours.

Natural gas is often billed in "therms", which are MM of BTU's. BTU is an english unit for energy. You should be able to find a conversion to joules as well.

Sometimes, natural gas is billed in cu. ft. That's more complicated, because you have to get the heat energy of the gas per cu ft. If I recall, it is about 1000 BTU's per cu. ft. Calculate the number of BTU's and proceed as above.

Answer 2

do you have a collection of utility bills for the year? with these i think you could determine gas used and money spent. to represent it in the project, i think a "tower bar" for each month (or roughly if pay period dosen't land on the even month). i assume the math of the joules (gas units) could be figured upon the utiltity bill?